WINNERS AND LOSERS
Olivier Adopo is a rubber tapper in the Grand Lahou forest in the West African country of Côte D’Ivoire. His is a skill that has been passed on through generations – an ‘art’ he says – that provides him and his community with a living. He sells the latex he collects to a local factory. But these are worrying times. The price for latex has fallen by half. The cause? The trade war between China and the US. China is the largest manufacturer of goods containing rubber in the world, and a fifth of its exports go to the US. And this is dampening demand for latex.1
The old African saying ‘When elephants fight it’s the grass that suffers’ has poignant currency in Côte D’Ivoire today.
Free-trade enthusiasts often say that, in order to develop and flourish, the countries of the South must be more integrated into the global trading system. But they are already highly integrated: Africa is far more dependent on overseas trade than Europe or North America – and not in a good way.
African countries are largely importers of finished goods and services but exporters of raw materials, often
